Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, CBE (born 9 January
1956)[1] is an English stage and screen actress. After training at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Staunton began her career in repertory
theatre in the 1970s before appearing in seasons at various theatres
in the UK.
Staunton has since performed in a variety of plays and musicals in
London, winning four Olivier Awards; three for Best Actress in a
Musical for her roles as the Baker's Wife in
Into the WoodsInto the Woods (1991),
Mrs. LovettMrs. Lovett in
Sweeney ToddSweeney Todd (2013) and Mama Rose in Gypsy (2016), and
one for Best Supporting Performance for her work in both A Chorus of
Disapproval (1985) and
The Corn is GreenThe Corn is Green (1985). Her appearances on
stage in
The Beggar's OperaThe Beggar's Opera (1982), The Wizard of Oz (1987), Uncle
Vanya (1988),
Guys and DollsGuys and Dolls (1996),
Entertaining Mr SloaneEntertaining Mr Sloane (2009) and
Good People (2014) also earned her Olivier nominations. Staunton has
been nominated for a total of 11 Olivier Awards.
Staunton drew critical acclaim for her performance in the title role
in the 2004 film Vera Drake, for which she won the
BAFTABAFTA Award for
Best Actress in a Leading Role and the
Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival Volpi Cup
for Best Actress in addition to being nominated for the Academy Award,
the Golden Globe and the
Screen Actors GuildScreen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress.
Her other film roles include Mrs. Blatherwick in
Nanny McPheeNanny McPhee (2005),
Dolores Jane Umbridge in two of the Harry Potter films (2007–2010)
and
Hefina Headon in Pride (2014), for which she received a nomination
for the
BAFTABAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
On television, she starred in the sitcoms Up the Garden Path
(1990–1993) and
Is it Legal? (1995–1998). Her performance in My
Family and Other Animals (2005) earned her a nomination for the
International Emmy Award for Best Actress, while her roles in Return
to Cranford (2009) and The Girl (2012) earned her
BAFTABAFTA TV Award
nominations for Best Supporting Actress. For the latter, she was also
nominated for the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting
Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

Contents

1 Early life
2 Career

2.1 Theatre
2.2 Film
2.3 Television
2.4 Radio
2.5 Other work

3 Personal life
4 Theatre work
5 Filmography

5.1 Film
5.2 Television

6 Discography
7 References
8 External links

Early life[edit]
Staunton was born in Archway, North London, the only child of Bridie
(née McNicholas), a hairdresser, and Joseph Staunton, a road-worker
and labourer.[2] The family lived over Staunton's mother's salon.[3]
Her parents were first-generation Catholic immigrants from County
Mayo, Ireland; her father from
BallyvaryBallyvary and her mother from
Bohola.[4] Staunton's mother was a musician who could not read music,
but could master almost any tune by ear on the accordion or fiddle and
had played in Irish showbands.[5]
As a pupil at La Sainte Convent,[6] she took drama classes with her
elocution teacher and starred in school productions of plays,
including the role of Polly Peachum in a school production of The
Beggar's Opera.[5][7] Encouraged by an elocution teacher at her
school, Staunton auditioned for drama schools and got into the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 18.[4][8] She also
auditioned for the
Central School of Speech and DramaCentral School of Speech and Drama and Guildhall
School of Music and Drama, but was rejected by both schools.[7]
Career[edit]
Theatre[edit]
Staunton graduated from RADA in 1976,[9][10] then spent six years in
English repertory theatre, including a period at the Northcott
Theatre, Exeter, where she had the title role in Shaw's Saint Joan
(1979). She then moved on to roles the National Theatre, including
Lucy Lockit in
The Beggar's OperaThe Beggar's Opera (1982), which earned her Olivier
Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical and Most Promising
Newcomer of the Year in Theatre.[11] She also appeared in two revivals
of
Guys and DollsGuys and Dolls at the National Theatre; the first in 1982 in which
she met her husband Jim Carter[12] and the second in 1996 in which she
played Miss Adelaide and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best
Actress in a Musical.[13] In 1985, Staunton won her first Laurence
Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her work
in both
The Corn Is GreenThe Corn Is Green and at
The Old VicThe Old Vic and A Chorus of
Disapproval at the National Theatre.[14] She also played Dorothy in
the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1987 revival of The Wizard of Oz at
the Barbican Centre,[15][16] which earned her another Olivier
nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.[17] Staunton won her first
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for playing the
Baker's Wife in the original London production of Into the Woods
(1990).[18] In the ensuing twenty years, Staunton mainly had roles in
plays, including Sonya in
Uncle VanyaUncle Vanya (1988), Kath in Entertaining Mr
Sloane (2009) and Good People (2014), for which she received Olivier
nominations for Best Actress in a Play. She also appeared in two
productions at the Almeida Theatre, firstly in the premiere of Frank
McGuinness's There Came a Gypsy Riding in 2007 and secondly in a
revival of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance in 2011.
Most recently, Staunton has appeared in two Chichester Festival
Theatre productions, taking on the role of Mrs Lovett in a revival of
Stephen Sondheim's
Sweeney ToddSweeney Todd between 2011 and 2012, starring
opposite Michael Ball, before starring as Rose in a revival of Gypsy
between 2014 and 2015.[19] Both productions transferred to London for
critically and commercially acclaimed runs.[20] Staunton won her
second and third Olivier Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for the
two productions in 2013 and 2016 respectively.[21]
Staunton returned to the
Harold Pinter TheatreHarold Pinter Theatre in London West End in
2017 as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring alongside
Conleth Hill,
Luke Treadaway and
Imogen PootsImogen Poots at the Harold Pinter
Theatre.[22] This play was broadcast in
National Theatre Live on 18
May 2017.
Staunton performed the role of Sally in the 2017 National Theatre
revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, alongside
Janie Dee as Phyllis,
and
Philip Quast as Ben[23][24]. The show was broadcast through the
National Theatre Live initiative on 16 November 2017.
Film[edit]
Staunton's first big-screen role came in a 1986 film Comrades. She
then appeared in the 1992 film Peter's Friends. Other film roles
include performances in Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Deadly Advice
(1993), Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Twelfth NightTwelfth Night (1996), Chicken Run
(2000), Another Life (2001),
Bright Young ThingsBright Young Things (2003), Nanny McPhee
(2005),
Freedom Writers (2007) and How About You (2007).
Staunton shared a
Screen Actors GuildScreen Actors Guild Award for Best Performance by a
Cast in 1998 for Shakespeare in Love. In 2004, she received the Best
Actress honours at the European Film Awards, the BAFTAs, and the
Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival for her performance of the title role in Mike
Leigh's Vera Drake, which also won Best Picture. For the same role,
she received her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best
Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture
Drama and the
Screen Actors GuildScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by
a Female Actor in a Leading Role.
Staunton portrayed
Dolores UmbridgeDolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of
the Phoenix (2007), a performance described as "coming close to
stealing the show."[25] She was nominated in the "British Actress in a
Supporting Role" category at the London Film Critics Circle
Awards.[26] Staunton reprised her role as
Dolores UmbridgeDolores Umbridge in Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One in 2010.
Recent film roles include the 2008 movie A Bunch of Amateurs, in which
she starred alongside Burt Reynolds,
Derek JacobiDerek Jacobi and Samantha Bond,
and the character of Sonia Teichberg in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock
(2009). Staunton provided the voice of the Talking Flowers in Tim
Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), and played one of the lead roles
in the ghost film The Awakening in 2011.[27] In 2014, she co-starred
in Maleficent as well as the British comedy-drama Pride.
In late 2014, she had a voice role in Paddington, a film based on the
Paddington BearPaddington Bear books by Michael Bond. Staunton and her Harry Potter
co-star
Michael GambonMichael Gambon voiced Paddington's Aunt Lucy and Uncle
Pastuzo, respectively.
Television[edit]
In 1993, she appeared on television alongside
Richard BriersRichard Briers and
Adrian EdmondsonAdrian Edmondson in If You See God, Tell Him. Staunton also played the
wife of Detective Burakov in the 1995
HBOHBO movie, Citizen X, which
recounted the pursuit and capture of Russian serial killer Andrei
Chikatilo. She has had other television parts in The Singing Detective
(1986), Midsomer Murders, and the sitcom
Is It Legal? (1995–98), as
well as A Bit of Fry and Laurie. She was a voice artist on Mole's
Christmas (1994). She had a guest role playing Mrs. Mead in Little
Britain in 2005, and in 2007 played the free-thinking gossip, Miss
Pole, in Cranford, the five-part
BBCBBC series based on Mrs Gaskell's
novels. In 2011, she played Grace Andrews in the second series of
Psychoville.
In 2011, she was the Voice of the Interface in the highly acclaimed
and nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short
Form) episode of
Doctor WhoDoctor Who – "The Girl Who Waited". In 2012, she
portrayed Alma Reville, the wife of Alfred Hitchcock, in the HBO
television movie The Girl, which also starred
Toby JonesToby Jones and Sienna
Miller. Her performance saw her nominated for a
BAFTABAFTA Television Award
and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Radio[edit]
On radio, she has appeared in the title role of detective drama series
Julie Enfield Investigates, as the lead, Izzy Comyn, in the comedy Up
the Garden Path (which later moved to ITV with Staunton reprising the
role), in Diary of a Provincial Lady (from 1999) and Acropolis Now.
She starred opposite
Anna MasseyAnna Massey in the post-World War II mystery
series Daunt and Dervish, and opposite
Patrick Barlow in The Patrick
and Maureen Maybe Music Experience. She played the role of a schoolboy
as the lead character in the five part (15 minutes each): "The Skool
Days of Nigel Molesworth" for
BBCBBC Radio 4.
Other work[edit]
Staunton has narrated
The GruffaloThe Gruffalo for an unabridged audio book of
Julia Donaldson's children's book. In 2014 she collaborated with her
husband, Jim Carter, and
Show of HandsShow of Hands on Centenary: Words and Music
of the Great War, an album of songs and poetry from and inspired by
World War One.
Staunton is also a patron for the Milton Rooms, a new arts centre in
Malton, North YorkshireMalton, North Yorkshire along with Bill Nighy,
Jools HollandJools Holland and Kathy
Burke.[28]
Personal life[edit]
Staunton and her husband, English actor Jim Carter, have a daughter,
Bessie, born in 1993. In 2007, the three appeared in the
BBCBBC series
Cranford (Carter was Captain Brown and Bessie a maid).[29]
Staunton was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire
(OBE) in the 2006 New Year Honours[30] and Commander of the Order of
the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours, both for
services to drama.[31][32]
Staunton owns a dog (Molly) who appeared in Gypsy at the Chichester
Festival Theatre from 6 October 8 November as "Chowsie" the dog.
Staunton played the leading role, "Momma Rose".[33]
Theatre work[edit]
Repertory theatre:

2004
Vera Drake
Vera Drake
BAFTABAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
British Independent Film Award for Best Actress
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
European Film Award for Best Actress
Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress
Iowa Film Critics Award for Best Actress
London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Online Award for Best Actress
San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival Volpi Cup for Best Actress
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best
Actress
Nominated—Empire Award for Best British Actress
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture
Drama
Nominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated—
Screen Actors GuildScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a
Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated—Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best
Actress
Nominated—Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress

2005
Nanny McPhee
Mrs. Blatherwick

2005
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Polly

2005
My Family And Other Animals
Louisa Durrell (Mother)
Nominated—International Emmy Award for Best Actress

2006
Shadow Man
Ambassador Cochran

2007
Freedom Writers
Margaret Campbell

2007
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Dolores Jane Umbridge
Nominated—
London Film Critics Circle Award for British Supporting
Actress of the Year
Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress

2012
The Girl
Alma Hitchcock
Television film
Nominated—
BAFTABAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Movie/Miniseries
Supporting Actress
Nominated—
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in
a Miniseries or a Movie